What I take away from that is that they’re recommending you rent out a party room at a local Chuck E. Cheese restaurant and do business there.
But you already give the kids a lollypop when they get a jab, don’t you? Maybe you could have your receptionist dress up like a clown, or start handing out balloons, or make your sphygmomanometer make a funny squeaky sound when you inflate the cuff.
I just received my LLC filing response letter from the Secretary of the State of Texas, so I guess I’m in business!
Focused on providing an independent business analysis of the more than 3,500 franchises offered in the United States, The Franchise Skeptics LLC offers the following products and services:
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Pre-made Franchise Comparison Reports. Our Franchise Comparison Reports are an invaluable resource, allowing the franchise purchaser to quickly compare the relevant data contained in five Franchise Disclosure Documents. In addition to compiling and organizing the data, we also calculate minimum royalty payments, ‘technology fees’, and other required payments you must make to the franchisor. Lastly, we take your franchise investment and compare it to a Dow Jones Industrial Average index fund, giving you an idea of what a similar passive investment would generate.
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Custom-ordered Franchise Comparison Reports. Looking to invest in a segment not covered by one of our reports? Call us today, we will be glad to create one for you. We will even make reports on non-similar companies: need us to compare Subway to Holiday Inn Express to Snap-On Tools? Be glad to!
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Personalized franchise analysis. Our premiere product, this is a custom-ordered deep-dive into a specific franchise. These reports are 50 pages long and require extensive outside research to complete, but provide you with the most complete independent franchise analysis available.
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Consulting services. Worried you’re making a mistake? Think your spouse is rushing into things without giving it full consideration? Let’s talk! I’ll ask you a few questions about your expectations and experience, and then we’ll do a deep-dive into the business model and see if it really meets your desires.
Currently I have five reports up and will generate about 2 a week. Those were my biggest roadblocks - I didn’t want to learn how to design a professional looking report in Word (Jesus, it looked difficult). I was looking on Fiverr for a report designer, when two weeks ago I came across Canva.com, a WYSIWYG marketing tool which allowed me (me!) to generate a not-bad logo and create these reports myself.
So I’ve been cranking them out since last week, having three up already. I want to have five up before I begin general marketing and promotion efforts - no need to begin that when there’s nothing to sell but consulting services. I should be ready to go early next week - get a report done this weekend, get another done by Monday night (they’re about 7-9 hour affairs).
For marketing, I am also working on a podcast, meeting a potential cohost tomorrow, and we should begin recording next weekend. The podcasts will be us ripping these companies a new asshole, and each podcast will highlight a company in each of my first 10 reports. Many of these Franchise Disclosure Documents contain emails to the current owners of the franchises, so when the PuroClean podcast is finally uploaded (and the report ready to sell), I’m going to spam, er, email market to (for example) PuroClean franchisees and their Water Remediation competitors “The Franchise Skeptic Podcast has an epic takedown of PuroClean’s business model. Listen to us on Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts, and buy our Water Remediation Franchise Comparison Report today - with this link, it’s yours for just $95… but this offer won’t last!”
(Something along those lines, just not as clunky. I’m just writing for a SDMB post right now.)
Will also have a YouTube channel which will, for starters, just be the podcast with the podcast art as the video:
The website above is OK. When I start generating revenue I will invest more than this DIY GoDaddy site, but the big thing is that it is up and running. If this is successful, everything I’m currently doing will eventually be tweaked and reworked… BUT! The important thing is to get it started, pump out content… both free and paid… and keep on keeping on.
JT
People don’t often mean that literally, but in this case you do.
Congratulations and good luck!
Great pitch! Hey, for the personal consultation services, are you going to only serve clients in your immediate area, or are you planning to schlep all over creation wherever a client turns up?
'Cos I’ve been thinking about a career change myself, and I could kinda see myself operating a similar consulting business in my region. Of course, I wouldn’t want to be stepping on any toes by hanging out a shingle offering this valuable service to the inexperienced mom-and-pop investors of America. I don’t suppose you’d consider selling me a franchise, would you?
Well, it’s national, but the business is structured so I can work from home: There really is no need for me to travel. Consultations can be done over the phone or, preferably, Zoom or other video chat service. The reports are the reports: available to purchase from anywhere, of course. That’s why I’m making them - I want to generate revenue when I’m not working.
On the other hand, I am looking for report compilers and compositors. I’ll pay the compilers a royalty for each report sold, for compositing, that would be about $200-$300.
Also looking for podcast guests, especially people who have been burned by franchise agreements OR their friends/family/loved ones who want to tell their story but are not bound by an NDA (we will properly anonymize). If you know of anyone, send me a PM.
https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast/the-franchise-skeptics-podcas-e92694
Have a partner for the business, we are recording a podcast season together and if you are interested in a sneak peek (we won’t release until mid-September), PM me and I’ll send you a link to one of our episodes. About 45 minutes, still in some rough form as we need ads and mail (you hear our cues and nothing else - we will add them as we get them), but the main segment(s) are done.
We have even scored some interviews! The one we did on Thursday, with a CEO of a franchisee who has a portfolio of Marriott and Holiday Inns under management, was fantastic as the gentleman… knowingly or not… kept speaking to the need for our services. Literally a 20 minute advertisement for our corporate mission.
Congratulations on launching the new business, JohnT! The initiative you’ve put into this and the promising launch so far are truly impressive. This not only sounds like a worthwhile enterprise, it sounds like a freaking public service! Wishing you fame and fortune!
I would have said something earlier but I just noticed your recent updates for the first time.
P.S.- Skritches for Luna!
I just want to say, I’m a big fan of Coffeezilla and he goes after fake gurus, scamming companies, and corrupt influencers. So I’m into this sort of thing. I look forward to seeing what you do.
Podcast is launched! The format is Allison and I ripping into one shitty franchise business model per episode, and our first season is 11 full episodes. The link below is to the four minute teaser, and the first two full episodes go up on the 18th.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/16706617/teaser-final-full-edit
(It is also on Spotify and other platforms if you prefer those instead. Subscribe, like, share, y’all know the drill, lol.)
A couple of updates:
- It was no big deal adding a YouTube channel for the pods, so we did that:
- Our PuroClean episode is up! And, not only that, our marketing has us email the franchises we discuss, and their competitors, so that this morning about 750 people… including about 260 PuroClean franchises… will receive an email with a link to this episode:
I didn’t read this thread when first created. But what a great job @JohnT did of uncovering the slime - a very professional expose in my view. Any updates on how the consulting is working out, new information or advice or gossip?
Just a quick update…
I rolled the franchise business into Inna’s bookkeeping firm. We are doing a rebranding/renaming of the company to “Beyond Books”, focusing on providing bookkeeping and advisory services for the franchise market. This rebranding has yet to happen, waiting until we get back from Ukraine in late July, but we are still growing under the old non de plume, BookkeeperSA.
On the franchise side, I just signed a publishing agreement with Penguin to publish my first real book, “How to Read (and Understand!) Franchise Disclosure Documents”. My agent says it’s a great idea, given there is nothing on the market quite like it and that it is a topic which should result in “steady sales”. The book is already written, and will be undergoing the editing/revisions/etc stage while I’m in Ukraine.
In the book I take the reader Item by Item, explaining which ones matter and which ones do not. I follow this with an exercise I developed to see… using just information found in the FDD… whether a typical franchise can pay a decent rate of return, showing the reader how to calculate this. The book then closes with a few appendixes - do’s and don’ts of buying a franchise, the best interview questions you can ask current franchisees, stuff like that.
About 25k words, with lots of illustrations, it will be published this fall. The “nicheness” of the book means it will never be a best-seller, but it may help it become a steady seller.
Will link to it here, and may have a “five first PM’s gets a free book” promotion when it’s pubbed. I’m sure y’all just can’t wait! 
I like “Books, Balances, and Beyond”.
OK, dammit, we have been tossing around names ala this theme and goddayum if you didn’t get it in one.
Talk about burying the lede
Naw, I have two threads about the trip already.
Thank you for the update. I enjoyed the podcast, even if I never had any intention of buying a franchise. Best of luck with the book. If it is written as well as the podcast it will be a valuable resource for many people.